Chapter 23
sofía
“That’s all wrong,” Jett says, and I pause my thumb in the middle of cutting a video clip.
I’m going to whack him with my water bottle from overstimulation.
Potholes litter the road we’re traveling down, each one rattling my patience. Our friends have left Cairns, on their way to Sydney for their own adventures.
The driver hits another bump, and I lift from my seat.
A deep breath is not enough to calm my jittery nerves or quell the overfiring of my neurons. His cologne lingers on my skin, a reminder of last night and this morning. I had expected sex; instead, it was three hours of working in silence, only pausing when Jett decided he had earned a kiss.
I’ve experienced nothing like it.
He sees far more than I want and hits all the soft spots I try to hide. Only, it isn’t a strike that leaves a bruise. Rather, it’s like massaging a sore muscle. It’s awful and raw, but the next day, it hurts less. And when you press into the tissue again, the pain isn’t as sharp as before.
“What’s wrong about it?” I grit out.
We’re smooshed together in a small van, full to the brim with other tourists.
While we’re taking a private tour the rest of the day, we have to meet our guide farther north of Cairns, and he arranged for us to hitch a ride with another tour group.
I’ve yet to decide whether this lowers the rating he was going to receive, but the bus is air-conditioned, which earns him some brownie points.
Jett takes my phone, his knee grazing mine as he leans in so we have an equal view of the screen. He’s generous with his physical affection, and I’m starting to think it’s a love language for him. Touch of some variety.
My stomach twists at the fear of getting used to this.
“If we want people to know we’re dating, you can’t cut out everything,” he says. “You gotta give the people what they want.”
The video we took this morning on the top deck of the liveaboard vessel—mere feet from where he fired me—plays in a loop. My hand moves up like it’s about to cup his jaw, but the video stops and begins again. I thought it was playful and teasing.
He drags the clip to the left by half a second and alters the brightness and contrast, and it transforms into something seductive. Instead of pausing before I make contact, it cuts off right after, leaving the viewer with the unknown of how he responds.
The footage is discreet, shrouding my identity and face. It’s hidden by my big, messy hair Jett convinced me to keep because he thought it was “stunning.” I found it hard to argue with him.
“What do the people want?” I ask.
This was my plan. And he’s hijacking it. I know what the people want, not him. I tell the people what they want.
“To think they know what’s happening. And when they think they’ve figured it out, we’ll post something new to keep them on their toes.” He adds a song with a slow beat, a bossa nova tune, then hands me back the phone. “Now, that’s something.”
The video plays out, and my stomach flutters when I lean over my deck chair and invade his space while extending my arm.
It loops, and I watch it again. And again.
The six-second clip runs half a dozen times because my brain is focused on what happened after that clip ends, when Jett leaned in and kissed me in a way that left me breathless and far too giddy for a “get it out of our systems” thing.
“It will do,” I grumble.
He squeezes my thigh, and I yelp. “Stingy with the praise, huh?”
“You get it when you earn it.”
It’s not until the words are halfway out of my mouth that the innuendo lands.
Jett’s smile turns feral, and it zaps heat straight to my core. “Oh yeah?”
His hand slides up my thigh, and I squeeze my legs together to pause his movement. Fingertips press into my skin, the pressure tortuously close to where I want him. The bus jerks to a stop, and the lust clears.
“Your guide will grab you here,” the driver calls out.
Doug and Molly collect their things in front of us, and I slump in my seat, ripping air into my lungs. I’m yanked back by the strap of my bag when I try to slip past Jett.
In a low rumble, with his palm pinning my waist against him, he whispers, “Tell me how to earn it.”
My knees wobble, and I stumble down the bus steps on shaky legs, his demand ringing in my ears. We’re dropped off in a nondescript gravel parking lot, and I glance around, searching for the tour guide company’s SUV.
“I’m going to toss up the drone and see what I can find,” Doug says, wandering down the road with Molly at his side.
They inspect something in the distance, while I dig through my bag for sunscreen.
Lessons have been learned, and the sun is already warm on my skin.
I’m contorting my upper body to try to reach between my shoulder blades when a hand snakes in front of me, steals the lotion bottle, and pushes the hand between my shoulder blades away.
“It’s sad to watch this,” Jett mutters, humor lacing the words. “Let me help.”
A demand. A request.
I acquiesce, my shoulders slumping. “Make it quick.”
“You know that’s not my style,” he mutters back, and my heart leaps.
“Oh? That’s not what I remember,” I tease, my laughter morphing into a yelp when he squeezes my ass.
“I recovered. That’s what matters,” he says, and I huff. “I can feel you rolling your eyes.”
“Are you done yet? We’ve got places to be.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world.” His words strike right through my rib cage and to my heart. No we don’t. We have ten more days of this. I’m dreading the return to reality.
His fingers pause on my back, and he asks, hesitantly, “Can I ask you something?”
Something in the question, perhaps the undercurrent of fear, sets me on edge. “Sure.”
“Is the reason you want this to be a fling because of that guy?” he asks. “What was his name? Terry?”
My stomach sinks. “Tommy?” I whisper.
“Ah, yeah. Are you still in love with him?”
The cap of the sunscreen bottle clicks shut, but I can’t face him, not when my heart is in my throat and panic roots me to the ground. He’s not supposed to know about Tommy. None of them know about him, not fully. The horror of that relationship is my dirty little secret to keep.
“How do you know about Tommy?”
“You mentioned him on the research vessel after you got wine drunk with Charlie and Vivian. You said, ‘You’re nothing like Tommy’ and ‘All of them are like him in a way.’” Vulnerability flashes across his eyes. “Is that the problem?”
Panic nearly shears me in half. “You are nothing like Tommy,” I admit. “He was…he was my greatest mistake.”
And I think Jett might be my greatest adventure.
I’ll tell him every brutal detail, flay myself open so he never thinks that again, but not right now, not when we have all day to get through. Jett dips his head, like he expected that answer but is disappointed anyway. “You’re going back to him when we get to LA?”
“No.” The idea spirals my body into a panic. “I never want to see him again.”
He made me small. Self-conscious. Needy.
The opposite of how I’ve felt since this trip began.
Like the string of shitty men has been severed.
For a long time, I’ve been one of those wild animals caught in plastic, wrapped in debris, functioning the best I know how, and it isn’t until someone comes along and cuts the cord that you realize how poorly you were doing.
“We dated for a few years,” I admit, even though the words are heavy on my tongue. “He was…emotionally abusive. He never hurt me,” I babble, “but he destroyed my self-esteem, belittled me at every opportunity.”
It’s the first time I’ve admitted the words out loud to anyone but my therapist. The realization became obvious in the aftermath, but putting words to the treatment gave it weight, and shame would settle like concrete in water.
How could I stay in an emotionally abusive relationship? How did I love someone who hurt me?
So I never spoke the words outside of the four walls of the therapy office.
But if spending time with Jett has made anything clear, it’s the truth I’ve been running from: I don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like—with anyone.
“You’re nothing like him,” I murmur. “But that’s a good thing.”
Hands grip my shoulders, and I’m spun around, a flurry of emotions swirling in his gaze before Jett drags me into a tight embrace that disintegrates the anxiety tensing my muscles.
“Thank you,” he mutters, “for telling me.”
The hug is over sooner than I’d like, and he straightens out the strap of my tank top, his finger lingering on my skin. My breath hitches, and he tips his chin downward, a featherlight kiss grazing my lips.
He doesn’t poke or prod for more, and I’m grateful. It’s not a story for right now.
“Today’s gonna be a blast,” he says against my mouth. “Let’s see some crocodiles and shit.”
The corners of my lips tug up when he kisses me again. I like the way he kisses me too much—gentle but with authority. It’s not what I would have expected from him.
“I’m excited for the ice cream shop,” I admit, fiddling with the edge of my top to dissipate the nerves fluttering in my gut.
“Sorbet is better,” he says before releasing me and strutting across the gravel parking lot, leaving me to meet our tour guide.
We will be conversing about that incorrect opinion later.
I chase after him, Doug and Molly reappearing from behind a bush, her hair disheveled and his long beard in disarray.
“I forgot how fun it is to do something wild,” she admits as we walk down to the boat docked on the Daintree River. “When’s the last time you did something a little reckless?”
“Did you have sex in the bushes?” I whisper, trying to keep the judgment out of my question.
We’re in a different country; what if she got caught? Bail was not included in my budget.
“Jesus, no. We made out a little.” Molly gives me a look. “I said reckless, not downright stupid.”
“Let’s go, ladies,” Doug calls from ahead, waving his hands in the air without looking back.